Liberty Party’s Guiding Principles

All Liberians should stand as equals before the law but the “Interior Regulations” of 1948 sustained practices that continue to divide us. The Regulations provide one set of laws for the “country people” and a different set of laws for the “kwi people”. Liberty Party believes that all laws, regulations, and practices that sustain the Interior Regulations must be reformed or repealed. We cannot achieve our best until we are One People under the rule of law.

Without justice there can be no peace. And without peace, the Liberian people will not only remain poor and as we have seen, the share of the population that is poor will grow. To establish Justice, the Supreme Court of Liberia, as provided for in our Constitution, and not the President of Liberia, must be the final arbiter of all controversies.

The rule of law ensures openness, accountability and transparency in government. Government must respect human rights, as a demonstration of the existence of the rule of law in the country.

The blood of our slain countrymen and women cry out, not for revenge, but for justice and the remaking of our body politic so that their death may not be in vain. We must, therefore, ensure that there will never again be an excuse for conniving men and women to engage in more killing and destruction in our country.

Domestic peace must begin with popular sovereignty and true reconciliation–the cornerstone of our national agenda. We must reconcile our ethnic differences, merge our parallel legal systems, reform our rival economic systems, and accept our religious and political differences, as a pluralist society. We must learn to tolerate views to which we do not subscribe. We must focus on those things that unite rather than those that divide us.

Peace within Liberia and in our sub-region is a pre-condition to promoting the general welfare of all Liberians. The criteria for the establishment of diplomatic missions and the appointment of ambassadors are the promotion of peace, especially in our sub-region, fostering sub-regional cooperation, and making Liberia a prosperous society.

We will begin to reconcile only when perpetrators admit the wrongs they committed; when Liberia has a national leadership in place, which possesses the moral and political integrity and will to implement sound policies with a commitment to remove the backlog of injustices.

Every Liberian has the right to acquire the piece of land he/she lives on. He/she should be able to sell it, rent it, develop it, and use it for any legitimate productive or other private purposes, provided that such use does not interfere with the rights of others. The courts should protect this right, and the method by which a Liberian becomes a landowner should be open, simple and reliable.

To effectively deal with corruption, we must introduce poverty alleviation measures. Public sector reform designed to create and empower other tiers of government will be a significant plank in our effort to reduce poverty and ensure popular sovereignty.

Corruption in Liberia is rooted in our indiscipline—our unwillingness to follow procedures, to stand in line, to distribute anything fairly. A political system based on patronage reinforces it. Impunity sustains it. Our struggle against corruption, therefore, must have a generational perspective as well as focus on institutional and institutionalized challenges. The challenge of correcting corruption must also be tackled through the family, the foundation upon which all future institutions rely. We must also utilize a revitalized education system by introducing appropriate ethics curriculum beginning as early as elementary school. And lastly, we must enforce the rule of law to punish those who are found guilty of corruption, including jail time and repayment of funds stolen from the Liberian people.

The concept of local government, under which county officials are representatives or “vice regents” of an inaccessible President sitting in Monrovia, must change. To ensure domestic peace, county, district, chiefdom and clan leaders must lead their people and truly represent local interests to the central government, for domestic peace. To achieve this, Liberty Party will ensure local governments are elected by the constituents they wish to govern instead of being appointed by the Presidents. We must empower our people.

The disempowerment associated with poverty will remain the permanent state of affairs for Liberian women and children until the government mainstreams gender equity, provide adequate, affordable basic social services, and take corrective and sustainable actions.

We have the potentials to develop our human capital, to harness the natural resources with which this country is endowed to multiply the blessings of life, and procure the prosperity promised by our resources to all Liberians. We have faith in the capacity of our youthful population to provide the talents needed to develop the country, but only if we invest in them.

The abundant evidence is incontrovertible: people are a nation’s most valuable resource. However, their potentials are unleashed only when a Government makes purposeful, sustained investment in education, health and in infrastructure to enable citizens to utilize their talents more fully and effectively. Indeed, Liberians can live a better life in our time.

Investing in the Liberian people requires special attention to their health, especially primary health care, sanitation and better nutrition. And delivering the basic packages of care and preventive health measures through community-managed health posts and mobile clinics is less costly, equitable and more effective than their curative counterparts.

Basic education is a human right. Meeting the targets of the Global Education for All (EFA) through a competent, credible National Action Plan shall be among the highest priorities of the Liberty government. Particularly, we shall prioritize the first two goals of the EFA–expand early childhood care and development for children up to 6 years and create the capacity to ensure free and compulsory primary education for all children up to 11 years old, by 2010.

Safe drinking water, nutrition programs and acceptable sanitation services for the people of Liberia are as important as community health posts. The Liberty Government shall adopt and implement measures to reduce water-borne diseases, such as diarrhea, in a setting free of sanitary pollution that is the preventable causes of deaths.

Like sanitary pollution, poor housing and shelter have a negative impact on the health of our people. But better housing and shelter also requires urban planning and better land use.

To break with the past when output of extractive industries that are vulnerable to high price volatility were the major contributors to GDP, Liberty will develop an appropriate macroeconomic policy framework to diversify the sources of growth and reduce dependence on trade in basic commodities. In a global knowledge economy, the Liberty government will focus on improving Liberia’s competitive advantages. The emphasis on production for export will be balanced with careful attention to building capacity to feed us and to trade with our neighbors. To stimulate balanced growth in the various sectors of the formal and informal sectors of the economy, efforts will be made to improve the Liberian business investment climate.

Toward sustained private sector growth, government will progressively reduce its presence in the economy by adopting a relevant macroeconomic framework, to create an enabling environment for the private sector and ensure stability. Rationalization of the economy through fair, transparent processes reduces the risk that a small elite will appropriate the benefits. Rationalization of all sectors that opens the economy to competition through effective and independent de-regulation is better suited to bring benefits to the poor—both generally through growth originating in activities that benefit the poor, and directly through access to better, more affordable basic services than through a bloated public service.

While a liberal business climate is important to attract foreign investors, responsible fiscal policy management characterized by a discipline in the implementation of government budget, reduction in corruption, limited public sector borrowing from local banks, free movement of capital, transparent and impartial court system and the restoration of confidence in our development partners, will create the environment where businesses will succeed.

Given the horrible extent to which the Liberian environment has been devastated, careful corrective measures compatible with sustainable growth will be pursued.